How to Keep Customers Happy Through Customer Relationship Management
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Elisha_Burberry]Elisha Burberry

In any business, customer care and management is essential to ensure that you keep your customers happy. After all, finding new customers may be a long and time consuming process, but making sure your existing patrons are happy doesn't have to be. That's why employing a range of customer relationship management tools is so important for a business to progress. But what exactly is customer relationship management (CRM) and what does it entail?

Essentially, CRM is a catch-all term that incorporates a number of concepts used by companies to manage their relationships with their customers. This can include the capture, storage and analysis of data gleaned from the customer, vendor, partner or any internal research process. In a theoretical sense, CRM is divided into three key functionalities: marketing, sales and services. Marketing primarily relates to the long-term planning and short-term execution of marketing-related activities within a company. Sales functionalities, on the other hand, are essentially focused on helping an organisation execute and manage the presales process in a more structured manner.

In contrast, services concentrate on effectively managing the customer service aspects of a business, in order to provide first and second level support to customers. These service functionalities could include service order management, resource planning and scheduling, warranty management and knowledge management. Currently, however, one of the most popular forms of service functions for customers is call centre support. [http://www.arvato.co.uk]Call centre management is now a crucial component of the customer relationship management activities in a business. Fundamentally, call centres cover the need to add value to a company's consumer support and help deliver real benefits in the forms of more loyal customer relationships, a rise in sales and indispensable information.

Nevertheless, running a call centre can be tricky. Call centre management requires the effective balancing of efficiency and service; customers will be keen to avoid long queues, so there must be sufficient staff and capacity to handle inbound calls effectively to maintain a high quality of service. Conversely, it is estimated that maintaining staff can form up to 70 per cent of the cost of running a call centre. So a successful call centre management strategy must undertake to minimise the number of staff present without compromising on the level of service offered.

Thankfully, the high demand for call centre management services today means that it's possible to choose from an array of leading call centre management outsourcers. Leading call centre management outsourcing partners will provide a range of services, including outbound and inbound call support, as well as expertise in customer enquiries, order and payment processing, sale acquisition and retention and basic technical support. As a result, it's now easier for you to provide your customers with many levels of customer support - and happy customers are sure to generate better business prospects!

Elisha Burberry is an online, freelance journalist and keen traveller and watersports enthusiast. Originally from Scotland, she now resides in London.

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